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November 12, 2015

Tools of the Trades

When my wife Laura Saeger and I were asked to become part of the World Monuments Fund team working to restore Shwe-nandaw Kyaung, Mandalay’s most prized monastery, we knew we would face some challenges, including understanding the ancient way of timber frame building in Myanmar, working with teak, a wood we were unfamiliar with, and working in an environment nearly 2000 miles closer to the equator than we have ever been before. What we hadn’t anticipated was just how difficult finding the tools of our trade, in this recently opened country, would be.
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November 12, 2015

Keeping Babylon Clean is a Full-Time Job

Keeping Babylon clean is a full-time job, but with the ongoing war the Iraqi government has little to spare. Thanks to World Monuments Fund, a group of local villagers and I make progress to return Babylon to being a place of pride for all Iraqis, just as it was in my youth.
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November 10, 2015

Documenting Babylon

Babylon’s main northern entrance, the Ishtar Gate, was the largest and most elaborate of the city’s gateways.
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November 10, 2015

WMF Peru to Continue Work at Chankillo

WMF Peru signed a collaboration agreement with the Ministry of Culture of Peru and the Municipality of Casma to develop a conservation and management plan for the archaeological site of Chankillo.
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November 06, 2015

Discovering Albi Cathedral

The exterior of Albi Cathedral (which some say might be the largest brick building in the world) is impressive and powerful and simple in its design but as soon as you see the decorative stone entry, you realize whomever built this also knew very fine stone carving techniques too.
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November 05, 2015

Original Wall Block Found in the Woods at Phnom Bakheng

Original block found in the hill slope and installed in its original position.
The WMF team working to restore Phnom Bakheng temple in Angkor recently identified the exact location of an original wall stone unit in the wooded side of the hill. This is big news because only in a few cases can we tell 100% the original location of a stone block.
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September 14, 2015

New Garuda Restoration at Preah Khan

A new restoration project focused on Garuda #39 was started a few weeks ago in Preah Khan by the WMF team in Cambodia. The project is the successful result of a WMF Adopt a Garuda campaign held last year.
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September 10, 2015

Our Trip to Pyin Oo Lwin

Pyin Oo Lwin, the former British summer hill station of Maymyo, was founded in 1896. Along with Yangon and Mawlamyine, it hosts one of Myanmar’s significant inventories of well-preserved British occupation-era structures, and quite possibly the largest architectural collection of early twentieth century colonial residential villas in Southeast Asia. World Monuments Fund travelled there to visit Kandawgyi National Botanical Park to make a survey of colonial structures.
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